The present invention relates to an absorbent headband removably connected to a multipositioned lenspiece.
The use of an absorbent headband by sports participants is widespread in contemporary society. For those who engage in athletic or exercise activities, the wearing of the headband reduces the flow of perspiration in and about the facial area and eye regions. Many of the wearers of these bands also use eyeglasses when active. The importance of wearing sunglasses for protection is being recognized by increasing numbers of the population. The wearer of the headband is frequently engaged in outdoor physical activity and it is commonplace to see an individual wearing both headband and sunglasses. For those who have engaged in outdoor activity while wearing sunglasses, the movement of the sunglasses during these activities is frequently a disturbing factor to one so engaged. Several products are on the market to limit movement of the glasses and they typically employ a retaining member which extends behind the head of the participant and draws the glasses firmly onto the wearers face. In order to be effective, the retaining member applies tension to the eyeglasses with the result that the pressure is transmitted to the nose and adjacent facial regions of the party wearing them.
Since the elasticized headband is firmly secured about the head of the participant, a number of devices to secure individual lenses or pairs of lenses in a lens piece to a headband have been proposed. The combination is advantageous to the wearer in that it provides both protection to the eyes in the case of sunglasses and essentially eliminates any contact between themselves and the face of the wearer. One such headband with detachable lenses is noted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,367 where individual lenses are detachably mounted to a headband with the lenses being adjustable for lateral movement to compensate for different eye spacing. In addition, the lenses are rotationally mounted with spring clips to the headband so that they can assume different attitudes during usage. This is important since the wearer may wish to tilt the sunglasses outwardly to accomodate prescription glasses worn therebelow or to tilt them directly outward or upwardly so that they are removed from his line of vision. While the tilting to an outwardly extending position is frequently sufficient, a total removal from the line of vision is important in active sport so that there is no interference in viewing a moving sport object.
In prior attempts to manufacture a commercially acceptable headband having multipositional lenses, it has been found that the structural aspects of the lens supports are insufficient to ensure that the lenses remain in a particular position during continued usage. The uncertainty as to whether or not the lenspiece will change position during use creates uncertainty in the mind of the sports participant with the result that he discards the device or suffers a reduction in his performance level.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a headband having a rotationally mounted lenspiece affixed thereto which is positively urged to remain in a particular orientation. This has been found to provide a device having little tendency for the lenspiece to move during athletic activity on the part of the user.